This week I am deciding to do a before and after blog. This will allow me to plan out what I want to do and reflect on how similar it is to my final project. When I write my previous paragraph I am going to try to think of some things that might go wrong so I can prevent that from happening. I am also going to think about my process before so I can make limited errors.
The date is Wednesday, October 12, 2022. My idea is to get my materials either tonight or Friday and make the cake this weekend. I am hoping to make a cake that looks like a lemon. I need to get modeling chocolate, cake mix, and icing. According to some videos I've watched, the most efficient way to go about this is to go about it like I'm making a cake pop. For example, bake the cake and when it's still warm, crumble it up and add icing. This way it will be more easy to get the cake in the shape I want it. After I get the cake molded I'm going to put it in the freezer for 1 and a half hours so I can get it to the right temperature. Then I will roll out the modeling chocolate and lay it over my lemon shaped cake. Some issues that I am predicting is not being able to get the modeling chocolate to look smooth. To fix this I would take a quick break so I don't get frustrated and watch a video on how to get modeling chocolate to look smooth. I also feel that the lemon texture won't look real, so I would put a paper towel over the modeling chocolate and press down easily so that I get a more realistic look. My dad and I went to Walmart Wednesday night. My original plan of using chocolate modeling didn't work due to the fact Walmart did not have any. I decided to just try fondant instead. I was able to find lemon flavored cake and icing so I could match the flavor to my design. The brand of cake and icing I used was Duncan Hines. It worked very well and had a strong lemon flavor. To get the white fondant to look like lemon yellow I used gel food coloring from Walmart and it worked very well. Today is Friday, October 14 2022. I started my day off with making this cake. The process was easy and matched up with how I predicted it to go. I thought the method of adding the icing to the hot cake mix to make it like a cake pop worked really well. It was really easy to mold the cake and get it to the shape of a lemon. While I was freezing the cake balls I mixed together my food coloring and fondant. As I rolled out the fondant I noticed that it was really sticky and hard to work with. I had an idea to put some pancake mix on my counter so that it wouldn't be as sticky. This worked very well and allowed me to roll out the fondant without it sticking to the table or the rolling pin. Putting the fondant over the cake was way easier than expected and I had no issues with the fondant not looking smooth. I wanted to make the lemons look more realistic by adding detail. I added texture using the paper towel method I came up with in the 2nd paragraph. This was overall a pretty easy cake to make and I thought that for my first hyper realistic cake it was very good.
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10/14/2022 0 Comments Blog #2![]()
I started off my project with making a regular decorated cake. I made the cake meaning girls themed since October 3rd was mean girls day. The cake had pink icing, candy letters, pink Pillsbury icing, and pink melting chocolate. I used a Pillsbury white cake mix and I found that the cake worked very well and was very good. To give the cake a more pleasant texture I used a tablespoon of milk and put it on top while the cake was still hot and the milk soaked into the cake.
The steps that I took to make the cake were actually very simple. I first mixed the ingredients together and poured the mixture into the pan. I also greased the pan and it worked very well in getting the cake to not stick to the pan. It took about 30 minutes to bake the cake. When it came out of the oven I used a toothpick to check and make sure that it was cooked all the way through. As soon as I checked the cake I added the milk and put the cake in the freezer. It took about 1 and a half hours to get the cake to the right temperature. When the cake came out of the freezer I put the cake on our cake stand and started icing. I practiced different smoothing techniques to get a clean spread of icing on the cake. When I was satisfied with how the icing looked I started doing the edges. I took a piping bag and did a border on the edges of my cake. After that I added my candy letters and then I was done. Problems that I faced when I did this cake was that the icing wasnt dense enough. Next time I might try to make my own icing or put the icing in the refrigerator before I put the icing on the cake. I think I also need to do multiple layers of icing instead of just one. In Between layers of icing I'm going to put it in the refrigerator and let it settle. Other than that I didn't really have any other problems. Thinking of an idea for genius hour was really difficult for me. I had a lot of ideas but one stood out to me. This summer I watched a show called ¨Is It Cake¨ on Netflix. I thought it was very interesting that people could make cakes that look like other objects. I have always wanted to try to make those cakes but I didn't think they would turn out good or that I would not have time to do them. I thought that this project is a great excuse to finally try to make hyper realistic cakes.
My plan for this project is I'm going to try to make at least 8 cakes in 12 weeks. I am going to start of with a really easy cake design like lemons, pancakes, or an apple. Every week I decide to make a cake the design is going to get more difficult. As the cake designs get more difficult so will the judging. My judges will judge my cakes on taste, presentation, and how real they look. I am going to have a before and after picture of the first cake I make and the last cake I make in order to possibly see some growth. Even when I am not making a cake that week I will still do something related to my project such as watching videos, reading tips, and watching baking shows. For my blog I will write about what I did that week to get better and make the cakes. When I do make a cake, I will add a video or picture of the cake and or the process. If I run into any issues I am going to make sure to add those in my blog so that I can learn from my mistakes. Any failed cakes will be written about so that I can look back on my struggles and learn what I did wrong so that my next cake will turn out better. |
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